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[tokkun]

So you think the two separate statements from two different passengers recorded by the AP and KGO-TV are false? What is your basis for that?

There was an interesting story on This American Life last week. A newspaper reporter located in an area severely damaged by the recent tornadoes heard a story about a man who was killed in a convenience store during the storm and other customers were stepping over his corpse to buy cigarettes. Four people from the neighborhood confirmed the story, including someone "in a position of authority". The newspaper printed the story. Turns out it wasn't true. There's a reason why hearsay is not admissible in court.

 

[Ashes]

Well there you go:

The headline is different now:

No bail for man in attempted cockpit entry

A Yemen native who disrupted a San Francisco-bound flight was portrayed by prosecutors Tuesday as a dangerous and erratic passenger who tried to barge into the cockpit twice, did not carry any luggage and yelled "God is great" in Arabic.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Elise Becker said Rageh Al-Murisi, 28, was carrying several valid and expired forms of identification from New York and California, $47 in cash and two postdated checks totaling $13,000 in his wallet. One check was made out to himself, she said, but did not specify where the other was from.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_flight_disturbance

Looks like an editor got to grips with it.

At least I got the court case bit right.

It's worrying that you didn't know that there isn't only one way to write stories.

 

[jamesinclair]

I hate to side with someone whining about teh librul medias, but that is what you're supposed to do in a news article.

That's great, if you want to turn back the clock of professional journalism practices.

This is first-day Journalism 101 right here. The old Inverted Pyramid

Seen newspaper subscription numbers lately?

I dont think doing what theyre doing is a good idea.

It got you to read the entire article right? I guess it works.

Why blow your load in the first paragraph?

If you want news condensed, stand outside a building with a scrolling marquee.

 

[Ashes]

Seen newspaper subscription numbers lately?

I dont think doing what theyre doing is a good idea.

It got you to read the entire article right? I guess it works.

Why blow your load in the first paragraph?

If you want news condensed, stand outside a building with a scrolling marquee.

I honestly think it's a house style more than anything...

 

[Pristine_Condition]

I've done that as well.

Pretty sure this falls under house styles. If you have ever read the Daily Mail here in the UK, that this how they write their stories a lot of the times.

Ironically, it's because they are such a right wing paper, that they kind of have to do this. Fox news does this on their news chanels as well. Always working up to stories.

AP is pretty huge.

Surely you must have seen this style used many different times?

Normally they do this with older news, like court coverings or something.

In high school, I was the "wire runner" back in the day for the local paper while I was on shift part time. My job was to take all the printouts of the stories that came across the wires, (we actually still had these back in the day) tear 'em off, and run them to the appropriate news desk. So I read pretty much ever AP, UPI, and Reuters story that came off the wires for about 20 hours a week for two years.

I also worked for a newspaper while still a college student that used the "AP Style Guide."

I'm a photographer now, and not in photojournalism, but I have college buddies who are, and I'm tuned into the world of journalism with many personal relationships. So I'm very familiar with how the AP style works.

They've changed a bit over the years, not strictly using the Inverted Pyramid anymore, but definitely still sticking with the "summary lead" structure (based on the pyramid) in hard news stories. A couple years ago, Tom Curley, the CEO of the AP said the pyramid was dead, but not really dead...and that they were going to a "summary lead" style he called "bulletins," which he described as closer to the radio news style than before. Still, it's supposed to be very "summary lead" oriented.

I could rattle around about this for hours, but since this kind of thing is probably just interesting to you and I, I'll leave it at that. The AP is very influential here in the US though, and there are many resources, online and in print, that you can look at if you are still interested.

 

[Ashes]

bio data

Graduated in journalism, worked free lance and proper, now in press editing role, as press editor for one of the biggest if not the biggest media monitoring companies in the world.

I have a dislike for this type of journalism, but not for reasons that you have cited.

This looks like a rush job more than anything now.

edit: yeah, I think we agree in principle, on a very base level, but you kind of took it to another level.

edit: all right I'm out of this thread...

 

[Pristine_Condition]

Anyone who reads the actual article can see that the scary terrorist angle is presented pretty clearly right up front, even if the headline is insufficiently scary for GAF's own Annie Jacobsen and his crusade against the lie-beral media.

Others can decide for themselves why Annie bolded the bit about Vallejo while ignoring the invocation of the terrorist angle in the very same sentence.

Glad you are having so much fun calling me names. You are so cool. I really wish I could be just like you.

There was an interesting story on This American Life last week. A newspaper reporter located in an area severely damaged by the recent tornadoes heard a story about a man who was killed in a convenience store during the storm and other customers were stepping over his corpse to buy cigarettes. Four people from the neighborhood confirmed the story, including someone "in a position of authority". The newspaper printed the story. Turns out it wasn't true. There's a reason why hearsay is not admissible in court.

That's an interesting story, but it doesn't apply to this incident. And you do realize that this doesn't hit the definition of hearsay at all, don't you?

Testifying that you directly heard someone say something isn't hearsay. And what we are talking about is certainly admissable in court:

Assistant U.S. attorney Elise Becker, in arguing that Al-Murisi was a threat to public safety, told U.S. Magistrate Judge James Larson that the defendant, who boarded the flight with no luggage, was heard to yell "Allahu Akbar," or "God is greatest" in Arabic during the incident.

 

[StrayB]

The headline of the article makes little to no sense given the nature of content, but the title of the OP is also questionable. At what point in the article did the AP say/imply that "Allahu Akbar!" means "I have to go to the bathroom!"?

Thread Title: According to the AP, "Allahu Akbar!" means "I have to go to the bathroom!"

The AP quotes the nutjob's brother:

"He might have seriously mistaken the cockpit for the bathroom," Almoraissi said.

Then the AP later mentions another passenger:

Wai, 27, also remembered on Monday that the wife of one of the men who took Almurisi down later said Almurisi was yelling "Allahu Akbar."

At best, you could say according to the AP, nutjob's brother suggests that yelling "Allahu Akbar" means "I have to go to the bathroom." But even then, that's quite a stretch, and rather embrassing. Even Fox News wouldn't write something like that. Yet you went, full blown, straight into according to the AP, "Allahu Akbar!" means "I have to go to the bathroom!" Yikes.

When I was working on my degree in journalism, we would call what you did there "burying the lead," but I guess things have changed a lot since then.

Not to be harsh, but when you were working on your degree in journalism, what would they call what you did there with the thread title?

 

[Pristine_Condition]

The headline of the article makes little to no sense given the nature of content, but the title of the OP is also questionable. At what point in the article did the AP say/imply that "Allahu Akbar!" means "I have to go to the bathroom!"?

Thread Title: According to the AP, "Allahu Akbar!" means "I have to go to the bathroom!"

The AP quotes the nutjob's brother:

Then the AP later mentions another passenger:

At best, you could say according to the AP, nutjob's brother suggests that yelling "Allahu Akbar" means "I have to go to the bathroom." But even then, that's quite a stretch, and rather embrassing. Even Fox News wouldn't write something like that. Yet you went, full blown, straight into according to the AP, "Allahu Akbar!" means "I have to go to the bathroom!" Yikes.

It was a joke thread title. You know...you exaggerate something for comedic effect?

Last I checked, NeoGAF doesn't have strict journalistic standards to live up to. We're all having fun here.

Not to be harsh, but when you were working on your degree in journalism, what would they call what you did there with the thread title?

Editorial satire.

 

[StrayB]

Ah, okay. I failed to see "teh funny" as the OP came off as rambling. Carry on, then.

 

[Pristine_Condition]

Ah, okay. I failed to see "teh funny" as the OP came off as rambling. Carry on, then.

It's commentary. I thought the story was structured in a ridiculously funny way. I ridiculed it. Not everybody sees the same humor. Some people take everything as "OMG!!! SERIOUS!!! YOU'RE A RACIST for bringing this up!!!" and some don't.

 

[Aselith]

Yeah, because newspapers have done so well.

Maybe it turns out that putting the entire fucking story in your first paragraph gives no incentive for people to continue reading?

By sprinkling the facts around, you make the person read the entire article.

Seems like good business sense.


In Pristine_Condition's world...
Harry Potter, 13, goes to Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry to learn magic. By year 7, he has engaged in a battle with an evil wizard, Voldermort. Harry Potter kills Voldermort and lives happily ever after.

Yeah, that sure will sell sell millions of copies.

News stories are meant to be written that way. The first paragraph is a brief summation of the broad strokes of the event and then the body is the nitty gritty. It's designed that way so that skimmers can get the important stuff in a quick blast while people who want more detail can read on.

There's no point in stringing people along with a news story because if they're reading it they already paid and it's designed to be informative NOT tantalizing. The newspaper is not a fucking Tom Clancy novel.

I'm with Pristine on this one. The reporter failed his reader by not properly parsing the most important facts.

 

[Lesath]

It's commentary. I thought the story was structured in a ridiculously funny way. I ridiculed it. Not everybody sees the same humor. Some people take everything as "OMG!!! SERIOUS!!! YOU'RE A RACIST for bringing this up!!!" and some don't.

You left yourself open for the backlash when you added the CAIR bit at the end of your post. Whether or not it was your intention, you cannot fault readers from suspecting you created the post without some intention of an anti-PC whine, rather than "humor" and "ridicule".

Personally, I do think the title the AP gave the article a tad silly, but I prefer it to a sensationalistic one that you appear to prefer.